


Old Salt

by inbox



Series: Church and State [5]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gen, Gossip, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 08:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15602199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: Two old hacks swap war stories.





	Old Salt

Founders Day is a big deal in the Brotherhood. Even deployment in a hot ops zone doesn't mute the celebration; if anything Kells has authorised a bigger celebration than Ingram has seen in years. There's a cordoned area down on the old airport tarmac with brahmin calves on spits, sharpshooters doing trick shots with laser bursts. There was talk of fireworks later that would sparkle across the dark water. Something to really stick in the mind of the local rubes. Something wonderful. Something _memorable_.

A decadent move by Kells. Decadent, but smart. The Brotherhood has flashed its dick all over the Commonwealth for fourteen months with varying degrees of success, but this kind of show of soft power is probably the best move to capture hearts and minds that has been executed yet.

The Prydwen is as empty tonight as she’s ever seen it; even back to when she first glimpsed it as a half-built husk spilling out of its hangar. The vertibird fleet has been running overtime since lunch; ferrying everyone to the ground ‘cept for the duty watch and a few antisocial types. Reasons are always mixed amongst those types. Some of them have seen a few too many Founder’s Days. Some of them honour Roger Maxson in their own way. Some of them maintain a kind of respectful - lazy - ambivalence.

She knows which one of those she is, and she’s got a good feeling that the person that she’s looking for feels much the same way about fireworks and formation drills and buying the affection of an ungrateful populace.  

Ingram walks the Prydwen from bilge to upper deck, slow as she likes. It would probably be healthy to get off the boat for a few hours, but the quiet lets her take in all the little details that she misses in the usual cacophony onboard. There’s a new litter of kittens in the engineering bay, noisy and tiny and unfortunately accidentally crushable. A signup sheet for out of cycle competency trials pinned up in the mess, a desperate move to patch the current promotion gap amongst NCOs. Someone dragged a knotted rag rug into the enlisted rec area and, as much as she knows she should send it sailing off the flight deck as a contamination hazard, she's inclined to leave it in place. It can't be fun working watch on, stop on on board, living in six hour shifts. A shitty local arts rug breaks up the monotony, visually at least. She makes a mental note to send someone down to treat it with a chlorine mist tomorrow, just in case.

Eventually Ingram runs out of boat. This high up and far forward there’s nowhere to go ‘cept the forecastle lookout, windy and cold even on a nice night. She looks at the compartment door, groans quietly at the thought of stepping outside, and undogs the spindle.

Church wheels around in the darkness, eyes wide. His cigarette sparks into the night as he clutches at the railing, a pinpoint of glowing red tumbling down into the darkness over the bay.

“Fuck,” he says. He looks down into the dark beneath his feet and says _fuck_ again, closing his eyes and hanging onto the thin railing with both hands.

“Did I interrupt something?” Ingram half closes the hatch behind her, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dark.

“You scared the shit out of me,” says Church, and half raises his hand to his mouth before he remembers that his cigarette is lost to the water below. “I only just lit that one.”

“I’ll treat you,” she says, and cautiously looks down at the crowd below. She’s not wild about heights either, not with her own history, but necessity tends to make uncomfortable bedfellows with fear.

“You heard the door first,” says Ingram. “Knight. Come inside. It's colder than hell out here.”

“I was getting fresh air,” he says resentfully, but squeezes past her into the stale warmth of the Prydwen without an argument.

“I'm sure,” she says, and steps back over the bulkhead. “You choose interesting spots to hide.”

“I was having a smoke in peace,” says Church. " _Was_ having a smoke, Marj,” he amends. He swallows hard, and there's enough ambient light for Ingram to see the sweat beading at his temples.

“Something bothering you?”

“No,” says Church, far too quickly. “Not a fan of being snuck up on in high spaces though.”

She laughs at that. She hasn't been quiet for years, not since stepping into her new legs. “If a few hundred pounds of metal can sneak up on you through a bulkhead door then I advise paying more attention.”

Ingram disengages one glove and sets it between the feet of her power frame, and takes the cigarette packet from his hand to help herself. She tolerates Church lighting her smoke for her. He's an old fashioned guy, old fashioned manners, two hundred and ten years out of date. His hand shakes a little when he holds up the lighter. It takes a few strikes before the fuel catches enough to give a thin flame.

“You can get a new lighter through stores,” she says, and grimaces as the stale tobacco catches at the back of her throat.

“No ma'am,” he says, and lights a cigarette for himself. He flips the lighter shut and hands it to her, broad side up.

She squints in the low light, and turns it until she can read the amateur engraving through the scoured rust and water stains.

 **I LOVE THE FUCKING ARMY  
** **AND THE ARMY LOVES FUCKING ME**

“Found it in an old legion hall,” he says when she snorts with laughter and hands it back. “Almost the same as my old zippo. _1269th Combat Engineers: ten parts too short, ten minutes too late_.”

“Some things don't change,” Ingram says. “Storbies still can't count.”

“Don't say that where Gavil can hear you,” he says, and for a moment he looks faintly smug, like a cat who got the cream. It'd be tempting to needle him and say that she knows all about those indiscretions where Gavil is involved; that the Prydwen is an eye in the sky with an insatiable appetite for gossip and intrigue. No matter how discreet he think he's been stealing away into the Knight-Sergeant’s quarters at dusk, or slipping ‘round the back of the airport at lunch: someone _always_ sees.

Another time, maybe. There's plenty of time to skewer him later.

“I read your file,” she says conversationally. “Canada, right?”

It doesn't have the effect she was hoping for. Something a little dramatic, like a gasp or a shocked twitch that she’s got his number and read up on him. Church merely says _yep_ and busies himself with putting the squashed cardboard pack neatly into the breast pocket of his regulation coveralls, sliding down the bulkhead until he's seated on the deck, legs outstretched as straight as they'll go. He pats the steel next to him, and almost smiles when she rolls her eyes at the gesture.

Ingram crouches as much as her frame allows, staring at him until he blinks and looks away.

“How many tours?”

“I thought swapping war stories was old hat.”

Ingram shrugs and exhales a narrow spear of smoke into the still air. “You don't get off on picking at old wounds?”

Church snorts at that. “Not my own. And I did enough. Would've liked to have done another one, but….”

“Huh.” She ashes her cigarette onto the deck, and winks big when he raises an eyebrow. “Squires need something to clean up,” she said by way of excuse. “You're not curious?”

“About what.”

“Don't be coy. It doesn't suit you.”

Church shrugs. “You're based in the Pentagon. The, uh, Citadel. If records are going to survive, that's the place to find them.”

“ _We’re_ based in the Pentagon, Knight.”

He accepts the correction without argument. “Makes sense. I'd investigate me too.”

“A stranger arriving in the mist like a wrathful angel,” she says, gesturing theatrically with her smoke and leaving dramatic smoke trails in the still air. “Gun firing like vengeance himself, cutting wave after wave of ferals down like--.”

“Fun interpretation, Marj.” He shakes his head in disbelief, but the corners of his eyes are wrinkled just enough to give his amusement away. “You spotted that one in the official record?”

“Maybe. Your CO is quite poetic when he’s inspired.”

Danse is not… Danse is not subtle. He’s proper to the point of indifference and she’s _reasonably_ sure he would never be crass enough to fraternise with someone under his command, but he’s got a kind of professional infatuation that she can spot a mile away. Paladin Two-Step looks like she’s kicked his dog every time she pulls rank and side-drafts Church to work with her engineering scribes on the Prydwen’s power plant. The guy is happy as a rat in shit to be shoulder deep in trunking with a screwdriver ‘tween his teeth. It's like a holiday from reality, she figures. Out there it's bitter winds and bad food and living hand-in-pocket with Two-Step and all the wellspring of patience _that_ entails. Up here it's just cables and 1000 hour servicing and negative pressure vents and everything else it takes to keep aloft this boat full of farts and big ideas.

Whatever, she figures. Danse has had a rough trot with bad deployments that he’s been under-equipped for in every sense: materials, preparations, skills. Maxson might have an over-optimistic view of his pet paladin’s abilities, but in reality… If Danse getting his confidence back with the soldier equivalent of training wheels is what it takes to kick him into gear again, then so be it. After all, Church is statistically hard to kill. The guy might be a waste out there dragging his knuckles in the infantry, but if it improves Two-Step’s ratio KDR amongst his own troops, then hell. Why not?

Anyway, she's got plans for the future. The moment Church gets nightblind or loses a finger or blows out his knee for good, she's gonna poach him the second his discharge papers get inked with Maxson’s blocky scrawl.

“What's it like then? From the old army to this?” She indicates the Prydwen with an expansive wave of her hand. The Brotherhood, the steel walls, Boston. All of it.

“One army is the same as any other when you get down to it,” he says eventually. “Two hots and a cot. That's, uh, technically for jail, but it worked fine for the big green machine too.” He blows a generous lopsided smoke ring into stale air. “Uniform is nicer now. Better food too.”

“That's a sorry indictment.” Ingram draws back hard on her cigarette, the glowing cherry painting the hair ‘round her face bright luminous red. She exhales a spear of smoke towards the ceiling. “And what was your opinion of it all?”

“The food?”

“Knight.”

“Wasn't allocated an opinion, ma’am.”

“ _Church_.”

He shrugs. “Didn't get posted to the Alaskan front, didn't do Sino deployments. I just turned some dials and kept out of the snow.”

Ingram makes a noise in the back of her throat that clearly indicates how full of shit she knows he is. There was enough information in the pre-war personnel file that Paladin Danse had requested months back to get a solid read on their new recruit, and even more information to be gleaned from a cursory read between the lines. God knows his record had gone through the hands of everyone senior on this BOSCOM deployment long before Danse had even been notified of the file arriving in the Commonwealth.

Danse might be a solid performer in the field but he has - had, has, will always have - zero knack for playing subtle rank’n’file politics. Maybe it wasn’t fair that he got thoroughly outplayed without even realising he was in the game, but hell. Everyone has to learn some time. Maybe that's something his pet stray could teach him, ‘cause sure as shit Church didn't make it that high as an NCO with a jacket stuffed full of warnings for over-zealous discipline without some serious chops for playing platoon politics, and not clean politics either.

She lets the subject drop regardless. Some conversations don't need to be rushed.

“You ever talk with Danse? On a personal level.”

The _mmhmm_ noise Church makes is ambiguous enough to mean anything.

“I know he needs time off,” she says bluntly. No sense in beating around the bush. “He's been deployed a long time.”

The expression he gives her is carefully cultivated into a state of bland interest. She knows it intimately, having mastered it herself prior to her promotion to proctor. It's the expression of someone listening to someone who vastly outranks them, hiding their personal opinion behind a veneer of blank professionalism.

“And?” She stares him down.

“Not my business, ma’am,” he says.

“Brahminshit. He respects you.”

“I’m not his commanding officer,” he says. “That's, uh--”

“Head Paladin Pak, who is about… shoot, four hundred miles and change to the south. Church,” she says, in all seriousness. “You're not an idiot.”

“Try not to be, ma’am.” He rolls his neck until it cracks, loud enough to be heard in the echoing space. “Is this a casual conversation or am I going to get someone's finger 50cal-ed into my chest later with an insubordination writ?”

“Just a casual conversation,” she says. “Off the record.”

He gives her a calculating look, sizing her up. “If you're talking about his immediate command on board being soft on him, I know.”

She tries not to let her relief show. It's easier to talk around a touchy subject when both people in the conversation are smart enough to not mention names and details in a place where the walls echo.

On this deployment Danse takes command from Maxson, and Maxson is soft on Danse. He allows him too much rope, lets himself hang himself with the need to push himself and his team, to the ultimate detriment of everyone. Pak had been good at keeping him balanced and focused, pulling at Danse's leash and bringing him to heel when his ambition exceeded his ability.

Church ashes his cigarette and waits for her to keep talking.

“I'm not saying he needs managing--”

“He does,” says Church firmly. “Send him back to your Citadel. Make him fallow for a month or two, make him a range lead or something.” He rolls his neck again and gives her a shrewd look from the corner of his eye. “Professional to professional, Proctor.”

“That's not possible,” says Ingram. She lets the sting in his comment slide for now. “For now this is a one way deployment.”

“And it's not your call to make.”

She shakes her head. “Watch your mouth, Knight.”

He gives her another long look. “Danse gets bad headaches that mandate long rest stops and they don't respond to treatment. He pops pills mostly, drinks if he hasn't scheduled movement the next day. He gets nauseous and sweaty if he hasn't logged adequate sleep or takes rest in a lit area.” He pauses, uncertain, then goes for the kill anyway. “I know he got most of his forward team killed, Marj. I've never seen him fully rested and I've got no idea of his actual level of skill.”

Ingram nods, shifting her seat a little. The chassis squeaks in protest. It's another in her long list of things to things to repair.

“You think he's over extended?”

“Over extended and over promoted,” he says, and ends his sentence with a long drag of his cigarette. It's a damning indictment.

“Be careful who you say that to, Church,” says Ingram, and waves off his look that says that he's offended that she'd even think that he was that much of a rank amateur at regimental dirty pool.

“I know.” He rubs his thumb over his knuckles, pushing a bark of dry skin loose. “Off the record, Proctor.”

“Of course,” says Ingram, and means it.

They smoke in silence, and she helps herself to another from the packet in his breast pocket. This time she lights his cigarette, snapping the near-empty lighter shut with a flourish.

“You're not interested in Founders Day?”

Church stalls for a moment, clearly looking for the most neutral answer. “Rather get some quiet time,” he says eventually. He holds his cigarette backwards between his thumb and forefinger, the glowing ember hidden behind the cup of his palm.

“And you don't know who the Founder is,” she says, grinning at him.

He nods, graceful in defeat, and leans his head against the railing, the long line of his neck vulnerable. “I’m sure Danse has told me in great detail,” he says to the ceiling, and grins at Marj’s snort of laughter.

“I won't tell him you didn't memorise the Codex,” she says conspiratorially. She cuts off his agreement with a raised finger. “In exchange for assisting with the new fusion resupply module that's being shipped up next month. It's at least a weeks work, maybe longer.”

Church accepts the sweetheart deal with a shake of hands, his human digits dwarfed by her gloved metal fist.

He leans back against the bulkhead and regards her thoughtfully. “You've got a squeak in your hip joints,” he says eventually. “I can take a look at--”

“You're not qualified to tighten my screws ‘til I say so,” Ingram says cheerfully, rising to her full height with a smooth hiss of hydraulics. She scoops up her glove and pulls it on in one easy move and sets back into the still-quiet belly of the Prydwen. She pauses and turns back at the top of the deckhead steps, pointing at him with her cigarette. “Come see me when you're tired of running around in god’s great outdoors and I'll train you personally, Knight. I'll make something useful out of you yet.”

“Cute,” says Church, and almost cracks a smile. “I'll let Danse know you send your regards, Proctor.”

“Take the next vertibird to the ground,” she says. “Be social. It’s Founders Day, you might as well enjoy it. And give my best to Gavil.”

His involuntary cough of surprise ricochets off the steel plate walls, unmissably loud and worth the supreme effort of not looking back to gloat. She grins to herself, taking the steps two at a time. Worth it. Worth it to come back and have that conversation another time, another day.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a gay and bad Fallout blog](http://wastelandbonerhell.tumblr.com).
> 
> Thirty seconds of halfhearted googling didn't reveal an in-game first name for Proctor Ingram, so as far as I'm concerned she's Marjorie Ingram, Brotherhood Scribe Proctor and notoriously bad at cliffs.


End file.
